My camera is fixed!!

I'm back!!

It's true! I got my camera back a few days ago! I've been taking lots of pictures, but I've been too busy with my video blog and school and everything to update here.

Right now it's 10:10 in morning, and I should be at school but all the kids are having a test so I have 3 hours of free time.

I love school! I'm making lots of friends, and I love my teachers. My Japanese is actually improving, too.

I might get to go to Tokyo soon! I have to give Eri a call when I buy my cell phone, (maybe today,) and then we will schedule a trip up!

I'm working on my new video blog, "A day in the Life", which will follow my life through a whole day of school. My classmates are really pumped to be on film! They are such funny people. I love my 2L1 girls.

Last week, I went on a trip with my host dad and host brother to the coolest place ever! It's called Coco Farm. It's this beautiful vineyard and winery that employs the mentally handicapped. It was built up this huge hill, and has flourished and become really famous. When I went there, one of the employees was friends of Tadaharu, and she gave me a book telling the history of Coco Farm, for free! I read it and it's story is really admirable. In the 1950s, this man decided he wanted to create a safe haven for the unemployable mentally handicapped, where they could find work and companionship. They started with a few hectares of land, mostly mountainous, and working together they cultivated it into a vineyard. Parents from all over Japan would come to Coco Farm with their disabled children, hoping to find a permanent residence for them. Soon, Coco Farm grew and grew in popularity and is now very famous.

This is me and Akihira in the display case with the wines!

This man is banging on a tin can to keep the crows away from the grapes.

That is the hill they planted the grapes on! It doesn't look that high from this angle, but look at the view from the top:

Isn't that beautiful?

My new video blog will be up next week, and I've got a new one up already!

Check it out!

Ill update more later!

-Jare